CHAPTER SEVEN
THEHOUSEWASINCREDIBLE. Made mostly of glass with black window frames, concrete everywhere else, somehow light and airy rather than heavy or industrial as you would assume. Rather it made the house appear as if it was just another piece of the landscape. The windows offered a view of the sea, and the broad expanse of snowy wilderness on the other side.
And yet, it was difficult to concentrate on the beauty of the house what with the specter of a threatened marriage looming over her head.
“You cannot really mean that.”
“I do. And for your sake, Olive, you had better hope the baby is mine. For if the child is mine, I will spare you time in prison, and I will have a care with Ambient, as it will be my child’s legacy. Or rather, half of it.”
“If the baby isn’t yours then what? Then I’m hosed?”
“Emphatically.”
“How can you...” She looked at him, at those eyes that were like ice chips, and she could see how well that worked as a comparison, since she was currently surrounded by ice.
And she had no idea what she had been thinking. Because she had in some ways not truly respected exactly who Gunnar was.
She had lied to herself about the level of comfort she could have in their... Relationship. Association. She had allowed herself to fashion him into a fantasy object that had blunted some of the truths about him.
He was a Viking. And she had betrayed him. Even if she weren’t pretending she didn’t know who the father of the baby was, spying on him, taking secrets from his company... Of course he took a dim view.
To say the least.
She should have listened to what he’d taught her the night they’d made love.
She had tried to control it, but Gunnar pushed the limits, found her true fantasies, her true self, beneath all the slick confidence she’d tried to convey.
Yet somehow she’d lied to herself. Convinced herself it wouldn’t be that way outside of that experience.
She had let cupcakes and years together soften the reality of what she was doing to him. And the reality of what he would do in return.
And she had... She had been so caught up in her victory that she had underestimated fully the manner of predator that she had gone to bed with. And she had blocked out the lesson after.
She was an idiot. She was an absolute idiot. Well, more accurately, she was a mouse. And she was trapped handily beneath the paw of a lion.
She had a feeling no matter how she scrabbled or scurried, she was going to stay exactly as she was. Trapped.
And so she would not debase herself.
“I’m tired,” she said.
“Well, you are welcome to avail yourself to one of the bedrooms. Since your fake nap on the plane didn’t actually gain you any rest.”
“I challenge anyone to rest while you’re looming about.”
“I don’t recall looming. I feel as if I was sitting.”
“Of course. Nobody thinks that they loom.”
“You say that definitively.”
“I have a heavy exposure to men of all varieties, and believe me when I tell you, many of them loom, and none of them think they do.”
“Go to sleep, Olive.”
And she realized then that she was being left to her own devices.
She made her way down the hall, and opened a couple of different doors. All of the rooms were quite similar. Scandinavian sparse, with beds and fireplaces and sheepskin rugs. She chose the one with the purple bedspread. Simply because she had a bit of a theme going on.